Category: Publication

The Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND) was founded in September, 2008 and its mission is to achieve environmental sustainability through the development and active participation of young people in policy formulation, planning and implementation of interventions.

The founder of SYND, Chibeze Ezekiel, realized that young people were often neglected in decision making spaces because they were regarded as inexperienced. The organization seeks to disapprove this notion by giving young people appropriate training and support so that they are empowered to participate in environmental governance. As is the case in most African countries, young people in Ghana are grappling with unemployment and a lack of income that is exacerbated by energy poverty.

To combat this, SYND is currently involved in national consultation processes, publication of articles/papers as part of influencing key decision makers in the environment sector. They also participate in sensitization campaigns at the community level on environmental related issues. They have a core team of 7 volunteers and they have reached over 100,000 young people as a result of their advocacy work.

SYND is currently being supported by the World Bank Institute and UNDP to establish the Youth in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance (Youth-NREG) Platform. Going forward, they intend to create a platform to bring youth groups working in the natural resources and environmental sector and are in the process of developing the governance structure.

As Chibeze contends, “The surest way to guarantee sustainability of the global development agenda is to empower young people in line with the “Leave No One Behind” mantra of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” We couldn’t agree more!

SYND just released a report on ‘Youth Inclusion in the Governance of Natural Resources and Environmental Sector.’ You can read it here.

For Tanzania to meet its energy needs – and in a way that is sustainable – huge levels of finance are required to boost its decentralised energy sector. But the latest research shows current funding flows are way off target.

By Jessie Durrett

A report released this week by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves shows that more than 53 million clean and/or efficient cookstoves and fuels have been distributed in the 2010-2015 timeframe. The 2016 Progress Report highlights the continuing momentum as the Alliance’s more than 1,600 partners work toward the goal of enabling 100 million households to adopt clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020.

By Eco Matser, Hivos

One fifth of women around the world cook on wood or charcoal stoves. This is not only bad for their health – it causes 4.3 million premature deaths per year according the World Health Organisation – but it is also the single biggest source of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Over the last ten years we have seen many developments, such as the massive spread of mobile phones in developing countries, so why don’t we see a change in cooking habits? Why do we still accept women cooking on firewood stoves without thinking about alternatives that match with a decade in which most people have modern mobile phones?

By Lucy Stevens, Practical Action

Here in the UK, we take having reliable electricity and gas for cooking and heating for granted. But even for us the prospect of power failures and ‘not keeping the lights on’ is a worrying one. For a staggering 3 billion people on the planet, however, ‘modern energy’ access and all the things that become easier because of it, remains a distant dream.